Gubernatorial campaign moves already on display

The game is afoot for governor, Republican Treas. John Schroder let the attentive public know after GOP Atty. Gen. Jeff Landry formally entered the race.

Schroder, who at the beginning of the year said he would be in with a formal announcement some time in the future, yesterday proclaimed that in the more than 30 state trust funds over which he has control he would drop investment firm BlackRock products over the next three months. He said he would divest around $800 million worth because of the company’s outspoken support of investment goals that include discriminating against corporations in the fossil fuel sector, noting that introducing politicized investment objectives interferes with a fiduciary responsibility to maximize the value of state deposits on behalf of its citizens.

The announcement was very welcome, if not long overdue. Almost a year ago West Virginia made the same move, adding that BlackRock’s problematic Chinese holdings contributed to the decision, and like Louisiana is a part of a coalition of states that pledged to investigate investment firms that practiced viewpoint discrimination. That move came about a month after the pledge, with its subject matter Schroder saying back then he would review and take action.

Favorite Landry's entry puts race into full swing

He fell a few months short of the coyness record, but the favorite for assuming Louisiana’s governorship in 2024 finally made it official, refreshing the contest’s dynamics.

Republican Atty. Gen Jeff Landry today joined fellow GOP members Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and Treas. John Schroder in the field in what already has turned as the highest-profile clash of statewide elected officials in the state’s history: never have three of the five currently elected top officers of the state contested for the state’s top job. Ever since winning reelection in 2019, widespread speculation had Landry running, who did nothing to discourage that, and with one of his chief deputies declaring months ago for his job, his entrance was inevitable. However, he didn’t come close to Republican former Gov. Bobby Jindal’s marathon of waiting until a mere three months prior to the election, months after Democrat former Gov. Kathleen Blanco announced she wouldn’t run for reelection, to make it official.

No matter, as in the case of Jindal grass hasn’t grown under Landry’s feet either in the interim. As of year’s beginning, he had raised more money than either of the other two, both directly and indirectly and likely has distanced himself further since. Moreover, compared to the other two Landry has had much greater opportunity to place himself in the public consciousness by virtue of his position. Here and there an issue has come up for Nungesser and Schroder that they could leverage to publicize their credentials for higher office, but Landry has capitalized on an avalanche of these, chiefly because he had the bad political fortune but good electoral fortune of having Democrat John Bel Edwards in office during his entire tenure, piled on by Democrat Pres. Joe Biden assuming office in 2021. Both have engaged in policy-making, often overstepping their bounds, inimical to Landry’s solid conservatism that has given him plenty of opportunities as the state’s chief legal officer to dispute judicially, and that often has led to victory.

We don't need to care about no LA Senate debate

The Council for a Better Louisiana’s head hit the nail on the head about why it’s unlikely there will be any televised candidate forum — often imprecisely called a “debate” — for this fall’s Louisiana Senate race. And it doesn’t matter.

CABL has tried to sponsor one — the way it works legally is some organization puts one together and then news outlets can “cover” it as a news event — with the three candidates likely to receive more than a couple percentage points of the vote: incumbent Republican Sen. John Kennedy, Democrat community organizer and past congressional candidate Gary Chambers, and Democrat pilot Luke Mixon. It even had a date set, Oct. 20.

However, it won’t happen because Kennedy’s campaign won’t commit exactly then. That’s completely understandable from a strategic standpoint. A heavy favorite in part because of high popular approval, someone in Kennedy’s position has everything to lose and nothing to gain by participation, while his opponents operate under the reverse dynamic. Even allowing them to appear on the same stage elevates their status comparatively, which an overwhelming favorite wouldn’t want to encourage.

Reject most LA Nov. 8 constitutional amendments

Louisianans face a mixed bag of constitutional amendments coming up on Nov. 8 that mostly deserve rejection.

Amendment #1 – would allow an increase to 65 percent from 35 percent in most cases the proportion of money in equities that seven trust funds worth $3.4 billion at present may invest. The state historically has engaged sober-minded firms to advise here, so this change should increase the overall levels of these over time without undue risk. YES.

Amendment #2 – would expand the property tax exemption for totally disabled veterans and to those partially disabled and surviving spouses. Disabled veterans already enjoy the most generous exemption in a system riddled with all kinds whose exceptions erode more and more local government tax bases. This is an issue that local voters should decide and not have imposed on a statewide basis. NO.

BC quality-of-life: pay for parking at your arena

Of the many questions Bossier City councilors have failed to ask during its budgeting process, certainly now the most public has become the decision to charge $12 event parking at the money-losing Brookshire Grocery Arena and the disposition of those dollars.

This week, the Council will have introduced its 2023 budget ordinances, due for final passage two weeks after that. The salient theme has been a significant increase in group insurance costs without, excepting the Department of Parks and Recreation and legally-mandated increases for public safety personnel with at least three years on the job, allowing for a salary increase for city employees it might afford otherwise if not so indebted.

From the city’s end, the introduced ordinances offered, in all but a few instances, two to three percent reductions in group insurance from numbers floated at the budget workshop in early September. However, these savings didn’t translate into salary boosts with that instead spread to other kinds of spending.

LA college reform, not more spending, needed

It’s good to review occasionally the condition of Louisiana’s higher education funding, as the interest group Public Affairs Research Council did recently, especially trenchant with the ambitious master plan adopted by the Board of Regents three years ago. But to understand best policy, you have to ask the right questions.

The PAR note on financing trends observes how means of finance have changed since 2005. Back then, almost 60 percent came from the state general fund and dedications, while only about a third tuition and fees supplied. Last year, the proportions basically had shifted. Meanwhile, only in the past couple of years has financing in total dollars surpassed the previous high mark in 2008.

This doesn’t bode well for the master plan, which seeks to increase over a third the proportion of Louisianans with a college degree in 2018 by 2030, if it’s assumed more money must be thrown at the problem to achieve the goal. In its summation, PAR also repeats some of the usual talking points without proper context that seem to indict the state’s contribution, that it “struggles” with funding higher education, that its appropriations per student ranks among the lowest in the country and southern region, and that to offset the reset since 2008 tuition has gone up by about three-quarters.

Processing tax swap for personal income tax fails

Like herpes, the bad idea of an oil processing tax, shilled forever by Democrat Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, just keeps coming back.

Campbell kept his mouth shut about it, the idea of levying a tax on each barrel of oil refined, for the last six years. He recently brought it back as discussion has taken place among some lawmakers to eliminate Louisiana’s state individual income tax, with his suggestion of swapping the two (not a new idea of his).

Currently, the state levies a severance tax on oil taken from the ground (including its territorial waters), which presumably is refined in the state. But that comprises only (in 2021) 34.7 million annually, compared to the 873.6 million processed (Campbell spouts the ratio of 49:1 total to state oil processed, but the actual figure is more like 25:1). So, assuming today’s West Texas Intermediate crude price of about $82 a barrel, around 0.073 percent a barrel will get you to the $4.3 billion hole that would be created – discounting dynamic effects that would spur the economy to increase tax collections in other forms – by lopping off the individual income tax.

LPSC must prevent deal from gouging ratepayers

For many Louisiana ratepayers, their cost of electricity could go unnecessarily higher unless the Public Service Commission stays vigilant and doesn’t lapse into following political fashion.

Last week, the body gave final approval to Entergy Louisiana, which outside of its separate New Orleans entity provides electricity for almost all of the state except for its western-most parts, to incorporate up to 475 MW of power from four solar producers, one of which it will own and three from which it will buy. This alone, set to come online fully in mid-2023, will triple existing solar and wind generation capacity within the state, which at present accounts for just about two percent of total generation, the lowest among the 50 states.

That paucity isn’t a bad thing. In part, it allows the state to have relatively low residential rates with high consumption, although overall consumption is driven by industry. Although geography can cause significant individual fluctuations, overall renewable forms of energy cost much more to produce for a variety of reasons, including transmission, its non-dispatchable form, and necessity of dispatchable backup. Over time, as the portfolio of energy tilts more in the direction of greater portion of renewable energy, the more extra ratepayers must shell out as compared to use of fossil fuels.

End of kid jab mandate points to needed reform

With no fanfare, Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards’ Louisiana Department of Health formally repealed its needless and counterproductive Wuhan coronavirus vaccination requirement for school children, ending a controversy that it never should have started.

Even this was botched. It appeared in the September Louisiana Register that details changes to administrative law, weeks after school had started which subjected children as young as toddlers to the burden. That’s because it was put in the works in May, just after an attempt by the Republican-led Legislature to cancel it, and the excuse Edwards then gave for choosing that timing – that the state kept waiting on full authorization for its use from the federal government – if really the main reason would have been timed better to allow the rule to become final prior to the beginning of classes.

But, because of that publicity, likely almost every school district in the state didn’t press the issue last month – except Orleans Parish, which, along with a very few and Democrat-run districts nationwide, stubbornly kept it in place. Fortunately, state law also allows families to opt out their children, which will blunt the impact of the directive.

BC backhands attempt at fiscal responsibility

Again, it’s only $36,000, but it’s also illustrative of what happens when government elites take the people’s money to rule in their interests, not the people’s, and the bad fiscal consequences that entails.

Last week, the Bossier City Council approved a three-year contract at that sum per year to pay existing contractor Todd Killen to run the Bossier Tennis Center. Those duties include giving lessons, conducting clinics, running tournaments and leagues, and offering repairs and merchandise, all together necessitating the hiring of employees, while the city picks up operating and maintenance costs of the facility.

During the final consideration of the ordinance, Republican Councilor Chris Smith noted that in comparison with typical area contracts of this nature that these have provisions such as a requirement for fundraising and diversion of part of fees remitted to local government as a reserve for capital expenditures. The contract in question had neither, and he asked whether these could be included.